This blog is about learning to get out of your own way. It is about learning to take a close look at your thoughts, feelings, responses, and reactions to find better and more effective ways to build and maintain both professional and personal relationships...[Read More]
Two questions I often get in workshops, from coaching clients, and in consulting engagements are:
How do I work with an unmotivated person? and
How do I motivate someone to work harder?
Here are the quick answers:
There is no such thing as an unmotivated person. Everyone is motivated to do something. Therefore, everyone is motivated.
You cannot motivate someone else to work harder. You can find what is important to them — what motivates them — and then find ways to make sure they get more of that as a reward for high-level performance.
According to this model for understanding what motivates behavior, behaviors come from our choices about what he hope to experience (in some cases what we hope to avoid experiencing). So, the key to “motivating” another person is knowing what they view as a reward for working hard or doing a certain behavior. (No, I did not change my mind about your ability to motivate someone else. I’m just using the word in a figurative sense.)
As a leader working to influence the behavior of other people, here are three clues you can look for to know what motivates them to high-level performance
Their personal lives
Their hobbies and other outside work activities are clues to what they enjoy and what might motivate them to behave in certain ways or to achieve great results.
Their DISC behavior style
When you understand their behavioral style, you have at least partial insight into their needs and desires. When you understand another person’s needs and desires, you have good clues about what they might view as a positive motivator.
The tasks they like to do at work
Sometimes, you can let people do what they would prefer to do after they accomplish what they don’t want to do so that the preferred task becomes a type of reward. This approach is sometimes called Grandma’s Law: “You can have desert after you eat your broccoli.”
Over the next few posts I’ll elaborate on each of these three clues to offer some practical application tips.
As I read about, study, and work to apply effective conflict resolution techniques, I see one common and overwhelming problem develop in workplaces, families, and social organizations. I see the same problem develop just about everywhere I see people interact.
What is this huge problem?
People make assumptions about other people’s intentions.
Sadly, they often make wrong assumptions about the other person’s intentions.
This behavior is so common and so prevalent, I have written about it on at least two other occasions.
In one post, I told the story of how I started down the path of wrong assumptions in an interaction with my daughter.
In another post, I shared an observation I made about an interchange where one person based their entire interaction with another person on their assumptions about the other person’s intentions without ever asking for clarification.
Recently, I had the opportunity to observe another interchange between two people who got seriously engaged in a heated conversation because one of the parties took offense to what he believed to be the other person’s intentions. For the purposes of this post, let’s say their names are John and Joe.
In a small meeting setting, Joe raised a question about something John had proposed in a previous meeting. I heard Joe question the proposed approach to solving a problem. Apparently, John heard Joe question the necessity of solving the problem.
John’s body went almost immediately rigid as he turned to face and lean toward Joe. His voice tone grew sharp, and his volume went up. In all fairness to John, I don’t really know what he was thinking. I did perceive his tone and body language to become aggressive.
The conversation got progressively more heated as Joe and John spoke.
As they continued, John made direct, negative comments about his view of Joe’s intentions. He used words like:
“You just said that because you want to…”
“You didn’t have the courage to speak earlier about…”
“I knew you would do this to me…”
In rapid succession, John manged to:
Negatively label Joe’s intentions,
Attack Joe’s character, and
Express his view that Joe was doing something “to” him.
It only got worse from there, and it all began with John’s assumption about Joe’s intention.
John immediately assumed that Joe had a negative intention. His response followed the classic conflict escalation cycle almost perfectly. From this negative interpretation, he went to anger (my interpretation of his emotional state), and both parties found themselves locked in a negative conversational spiral.
Had John been willing to question his assumptions about Joe’s intention and then to engage in conversation and dialogue rather than in attack and recrimination, the situation would likely have gone in a totally different direction.
The next time you find your assumptions about another person’s intention leaning towards the negative, stop yourself for just a moment and question your assumptions.
Did they mean that as an attack or simply as a statement of their opinion?
Are they attacking my character or are they just trying to understand my approach?
Did they mean what I think they mean?
I’m sure you get the point. Take just a moment to slow down and question your assumptions before you dive into the conversation.
Guy Answers the Question: Is One Style Better Than the Others?
People often ask me if one DISC style is better than the others.
My answer is, emphatically, NO! One DISC style is not better than the others. All of the DISC styles have value. All of the DISC behavioral styles contribute something to businesses and families.
I would say that a particular behavior normally associated with any of the DISC styles can be either appropriate or inappropriate depending on the context and the situation.
For example, I am naturally calm, unemotional, and analytical. That particular blend of behaviors is really good for evaluating data and coming to rational conclusions based on the evaluation. These behaviors are not particularly helpful when I want to connect with another person or do a presentation in front of a group of people.
When I work with others, I have to apply more engaging behaviors so that they realize that I care about them, the situation, or my presentation. My “high-C” behaviors are not necessarily worse than typical “high-S” or “high-I” behaviors. While my natural style is really good for analyzing data, the behaviors that go with that style might not be effective (I should say, probably will not be effective) in connecting with others.
I have to learn to apply different behaviors in different situations. I do this to be effective in the situation, not because my style is “worse” than any other style.
One of the mantra’s we repeat in training is:
Not good. Not bad. Just different.
This article is from theDISC FAQ'sseries. Use the links below to read more from this series.
As I mentioned in my post about why conflicts escalate, bad things can happen when we perceive other people’s words or actions to be a threat to us in some way.
As a result of this perception of threat, we often get angry. Then, we behave in ways that they perceive as a threat, and the conflict escalation cycle begins.
Our natural responses to conflict often begin with this perception of threat. This perception triggers our “fight-or-flight” response, and our adrenal glands kick into high gear. At this point, our bodies get flooded with adrenaline and logical, rational thought pretty much stops (at least for a moment).
When we perceive others to be a threat, we generally act in two ways that can be incredibly effective at protecting us from physical harm and terribly detrimental when it comes to resolving most workplace and family conflicts.
How the “fight” response contributes to conflict escalation is pretty straightforward. With this approach, we usually come on too strongly and too aggressively for the vast majority of normal relational situations. As a result, the other person feels a direct threat from our response.
How the “flight” response contributes to conflict escalation is a little more subtle, and still just as powerful in its affect on the conflict escalation cycle.
The flight response often leads us to disengage, remain quiet, and withdraw from the person we perceive as a “threat.”
Depending on the other person’s perspective, withdrawing from the situation can signal a number of things that actually contribute to escalating rather than de-escalating the situation (if not immediately, then over time).
For example, they might view us as being unmotivated, unconcerned, or unwilling to engage. In any of these cases, they can feel compelled to pursue interaction in an effort to settle the issue. They pursue, we withdraw, they pursue some more, we withdraw further, etc.
Our withdrawal, rather than helping the situation, has escalated the conflict.
To avoid either of these negative responses, I suggest an approach that starts this way:
Question the story you are telling yourself about the other person.
For example, you can question whether or not they actually intend to be a threat to you by re-framing your internal dialogue this way:
“Do they mean to harm me in some way, or did I just misunderstand?”
“Are they really on the attack, or are they just tired and having a bad moment?”
“Are they an evil person, or did I say something that offended them?”
Alternative stories can stop our perception of threat and lead us to a more positive, rational, and engaged response than either a heated attack or an icy withdrawal. We can act to resolve the communication breakdown rather than act to escalate the conflict.
Please share your thoughts on the steps you can take to move conflicts towards resolution and away from escalation.
Guy Answers the Question: Can Four Styles Really Describe Everyone?
One question that frequently comes up when I teach the DISC model is this:
“Can you really describe everyone with just four styles?”
The short answer is: yes, you can describe all the behaviors and perspectives of all people using information revealed by understanding the four DISC style descriptors.*
Sometimes people take exception to this simple answer. When they do, I usually get challenged with something like:
“There are 6 billion people on the planet, you can’t possibly define all of them with four letters/categories.”
To which, I reply: “You’re right. I can’t define all people with four letters or categories. I can, though, use four basic style descriptors to create a frame of reference that allows me to understand them better when we interact.”
Here are some observations to support this position.
We Regularly Use Only Two Categories to Describe All People
There are two broad categories that we use every day to describe all people on the planet: male and female.
The studies of male vs. female perspectives I have read indicate that men tend to share perspectives on certain issues, women tend to share perspectives on these same issues, and men tend to have different perspectives from women on the issues in question.
The results in the studies point to general perspective similarities only on the issues evaluated in the study. It would be a wrong application of the study results to say that all men or all women think, feel, or behave a certain way in all situations. It is okay to say that the studies reveal tendencies and similarities in the perspectives evaluated in the studies.
I am not a woman. When I read the study results about the perspectives many women have on certain issues, I frankly don’t get it. I understand it intellectually. I just don’t relate to the perspective.
When I interact with my wife, I can use my understanding of the study results to better understand the true intent of her words and actions. I can attempt to view her behavior through her lens rather than through mine. I don’t want to stereotype her with the results. I just want to use the study results to get an emotional hook that allows me to “get” what she is saying in a different way than I would “get” it if I had no way to reframe what I was hearing and seeing.
We Use Only 26 Letters to Define the English Language
I don’t know the exact number of words used in the English language. I have heard that it is greater than 1 million words. And still, all of them are fully defined with only 26 letters.
What Does All This Have to do With the Question We Began With?
I don’t want to categorize, label, or box-in anyone. I don’t want to tell people what job they are or are not qualified to pursue because of their behavior style. I don’t want to psychoanalyze them. I just want to understand them so that I can connect and communicate better.
The four DISC behavioral styles simply reveal tendencies and patterns in behaviors and perceptions. They do not neatly define another person.They do provide guidance and insight to understanding other perspectives that happen to be different from mine.
I see the DISC model as a sort of alphabet that helps me to understand people more fully than I would if I was stuck with only my viewpoint as a filter for understanding them.
When you really understand the model and it’s application, you learn that there are far more than four “categories” to use for that understanding. (I don’t really like the word category in this context. It’s just the simplest word I can find at the moment.)
When you consider the different simple combinations of the four DISC descriptors, you quickly arrive at 41 generalized style “types.”
For example, I have a strong blend of Cautious, Dominant, and Supportive traits. None of the three fully describes my viewpoint. The combination of the three traits gets pretty close. Likewise, my wife has a strong blend of Dominant, Inspiring, and Cautious traits. When I look at that combination of traits, it gets pretty close to describing how she usually responds to situations.
To take it one step deeper, you could consider the various levels of intensities of the four styles that any given person might exhibit. When you do that, you get 19,680 different Basic DISC style graphs. I don’t intend to go deeply into these subtleties here.
And, I haven’t even begun to comment on what you learn from the Environmental DISC style graphs or by understanding “low styles” like the “I” trait shown in my DISC profile graph to the right.
All of this simply makes the point that the simple little DISC model of human behavior has much more depth than most people see when they first encounter it.
When people use the model to define another person or to limit their potential, they use the model as a weapon. They are stereotyping and labeling. Both of which, I think, are wrong. These are really good strategies if you want to irritate someone with the DISC model.
When people use the model to create an understanding of another person’s perspective, they use the model as a tool. They are connecting and communicating more effectively. Both of which, I think, are good.
To me, the beauty of the model lies in its simplicity. Its simplicity helps me to remember it when the pressure hits. It helps me to quickly explain it to others when the time is right.
The depth of the model gives me confidence that I can, with study and practice, learn to use it to strengthen and deepen all of my relationships.
*When I say “all people,” I am referring to all people who fall into what you could call “normal human psychology.” Which means, people with no clinical psychological disorder. This would be something like 90-95% of the people on the planet. Not truly everyone, but most people I encounter on a daily basis.
